FengjianFēngjiàn () was a governance system in ancient China, whose social structure formed a decentralized system of confederation-like government. The ruling class consisted of the Son of Heaven (king) and aristocracy, and the lower class consisted of commoners categorized into four occupations (or "four categories of the people", namely scholar-officials, peasants, laborers and merchants). Elite bonds through affinal relations and submission to the overlordship of the king date back to the Shang dynasty, but it was the Western Zhou dynasty when the Zhou kings enfeoffed their clan relatives and fellow warriors as vassals.
Feudal land tenure in EnglandUnder the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold, signifying that they were hereditable or perpetual, or non-free where the tenancy terminated on the tenant's death or at an earlier specified period. In England's ancient past large parts of the realm were unoccupied and owned as allodial titles: the landowners simply cooperated with the king out of a mutual interest instead of legal obligation.
KholopA kholop (холо́п) was a type of feudal serf (dependent population) in Kievan Rus' in the 9th and early 12th centuries. Their legal status in Russia was close to that of slaves. They were sold as any other property of their master until the emancipation reform of 1861. The official term "kholop" was phased out in 1724, but remains in use as a type of insult. The word kholop was first mentioned in a chronicle for the year of 986. The word is cognate with Slavic words translated as "man" or "boy" (Ukrainian: хлопець (khlopets), Polish: chłopiec, Bulgarian: хлапе/хлапак).
CoolieCoolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a pejorative term used for low-wage labourers, typically of Indian or Chinese descent. The word coolie was first used in the 16th century by European traders across Asia. By the 18th century, the term would refer to migrant Indian indentured labourers. In the 19th century, during the British colonial era, the term would gain a new definition of the systematic transportation and employment of Asian laborers via employment contracts on sugar plantations that had been formerly worked by enslaved Africans.
Cotter (farmer)Cotter, cottier, cottar, Kosatter or Kötter is the German or Scots term for a peasant farmer (formerly in the Scottish Highlands for example). Cotters occupied cottages and cultivated small land lots. The word cotter is often employed to translate the cotarius recorded in the Domesday Book, a social class whose exact status has been the subject of some discussion among historians, and is still a matter of doubt. According to Domesday, the cotarii were comparatively few, numbering fewer than seven thousand people.
Colonus (person)In the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages a colonus (plural: coloni) was a tenant farmer. Known collectively as the "colonate", these farmers operated as sharecroppers, paying landowners with a portion of their crops in exchange for use of their farmlands. The coloni'''s tenant-landlord relationship eventually degraded into one of debt and dependence. As a result, the colonus system became a new type of land tenancy, placing the occupants in a state between freedom and slavery.
HeerlijkheidA heerlijkheid (a Dutch word; pl. heerlijkheden; also called heerschap; Latin: Dominium) was a landed estate that served as the lowest administrative and judicial unit in rural areas in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries before 1800. It originated as a unit of lordship under the feudal system during the Middle Ages. The English equivalents are manor, seigniory and lordship. The German equivalent is Herrschaft. The heerlijkheid system was the Dutch version of manorialism that prevailed in the Low Countries and was the precursor to the modern municipality system in the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium.
Slavery in ancient GreeceSlavery was a widely accepted practice in ancient Greece, as it was in contemporaneous societies. The principal use of slaves was in agriculture, but they were also used in stone quarries or mines, and as domestic servants. Modern historiographical practice distinguishes between chattel slavery (where the slave was regarded as a piece of property, as opposed to a member of human society) and land-bonded groups such as the penestae of Thessaly or the Spartan helots, who were more like medieval serfs (an enhancement to real estate).
Grain tradeThe grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other agricultural products. Healthy grain supply and trade is important to many societies, providing a caloric base for most food systems as well as important role in animal feed for animal agriculture. The grain trade is as old as agricultural settlement, identified in many of the early cultures that adopted sedentary farming.
EnclosureEnclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land could be either through a formal or informal process. The process could normally be accomplished in three ways. First there was the creation of "closes", taken out of larger common fields by their owners.
